The Big Sky

Last updated on: August 21, 2012 at 6:43 am by Coyle Neal

The Big Sky 2012-08-21T06:43:52-06:00 Coyle Neal

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Review of The Big Sky by A.B. Guthrie, Jr.

By COYLE NEAL

The Big Sky is the story of Boone Caudill, who just wants to be left alone. Left alone by his parents, left alone by society, and left alone by every other human being. So he moves West, where he learns the ways of the Indians and lives as a Mountain Man. And… that’s pretty much the plot. Unlike most Westerns, this isn’t a book that you read for the action sequences. Nor would you read it for character development—Boone starts off as a terrible human being and ends up exactly the same way. Really, the main reason to pick up The Big Sky is for the skillful depiction of both the untamed West and a certain attitude about independent living:

This was the way to live, free and easy, with time all a man’s own and none to say no to him. A body got so’s he felt everything was kin to him, the earth and sky and buffalo and beaver and the yellow moon at night. It was better than being walled in by a house, better than breathing in spoiled air and feeling caged like a varmint, better than running after the law or having the law running after you and looking to rules all the time until you wondered could you even take down your pants without somebody’s say-so. Here a man lived natural. (191)

Which is fine, but after 350-plus pages of lots of this sort of reflection and almost no action, the book tends to drag to the point of being actively dull. So if you’re going to read a Western, this is not the place to start…

And yet, there are some important themes in The Big Sky—the most important of which is the relationship between the individual, society, and nature. The repeated theme of the book is that society oppresses and corrupts the individual, who can only be truly free when alone in nature. Boone struggles desperately to cut all of the ties that bind him to civilization, leaving his Kentucky homestead to travel West with a riverboat crew, and then even abandoning that rugged lifestyle to run with the mountain men. Even that group is too cultured for Boone (after all, they get together once a year to sell their pelts and restock ammunition, coffee, and such), so he moves in with the Indians and lives with the tribe. Finally, any society at all is declared to be intolerable, because no matter how far from civilization and deep into nature he gets, he cannot escape the influence of his “civilized” past.

It was as if a man couldn’t get free from what he had been and done. He couldn’t be himself alone; he had to be all the other men he was, in the season before and the season before that and the season before that. He couldn’t stand just by what he did now; he had to stand by what he had done in the past, too. (280)

So even if we want to get away from the corruptions of society (as Rousseau would encourage us to do), the damage is already done. We can never be the free and happy people we want to be as we live amidst the glories of nature because society and civilization have already done their dirty work and corrupted us.

We as Christians have two ways to respond to the challenge presented by Boone Cauldill. (And I do mean presented by Boone, because while the main character is clear in what he thinks, the book as a whole is a bit more vague as to whether he’s actually right.) First, we reject the idea that nature is pure while society corrupts. Instead, we argue that both are a mix of good and evil. Nature declares the glory of God (Psalm 19:1-4), even as it groans under the weight of corruption and sin (Romans 8:22). Second, we recognize that civilization and society likewise exist at the decree of God (Romans 13:1-7) and oppose His purposes (Revelation 11:1-2) simultaneously. The Christian response to the problem posed in The Big Sky is that our troubles are not a result of society, and not even a result of the natural world; our problems are ourselves. No matter how far away from civilization we get, we cannot escape our own sinful nature. We can of course replace the problems of civilization with the problems of untamed nature (though that’s harder today than it was in the early 1800s), but we cannot escape the corruption that we carry within us. That corruption will be dealt with at the cross, or not at all.

Previous Post

August 20, 2012

Epic Men

Next Post

August 22, 2012 The Great Leap Forward to Famine

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Action AFI Top 100 Animation Best Picture Winner BFI Top 250 Biography Biopic Books Childrens Christian Classics Classics Comedy Crime Documentary Drama Editor's Choice Family Fantasy Fantasy Films Foreign Historical Historical Fiction History Horror Horror IMDB Top 250 Indie Memoir Modern Novel Musical Mystery Non-Fiction Oscars Philosophy Poetry Popular Literature Reading and Writing Reality Romance Science Fiction Science Fiction Silent Sports Thriller TV Show Uncategorized Western Westerns Young Adult

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 June 2017 January 2017 December 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was the first king of Judah after Israel split?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Jeroboam Asa Rehoboam Ahab